School Auditors & Investigators Speak Out on Lack of Big Dollar Prosecutions #VB7

April 28, 2006

Los Angeles, CA . School auditors and investigators speak out about their disappointment over the failure of prosecutors to file charges for big dollar crimes documented by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Office of Inspector General. In a Full Disclosure Network® nine minute video news blog some of the most egregious investigations undertaken by the Inspector General’s office are revealed, including the notorious Belmont Learning Center. The video is available free, on demand, 24/7, as a public service. Viewers are asked to respond in to survey questions and leave their comments for an online discussion.

Here are a few issues discussed in the video:

Former LAUSD Inspector General Don Mullinax responds to Full Disclosure® when asked what why no prosecutions resulted from his extensive reports of waste, fraud and abuse on the still incomplete $330 million Belmont Learning Center. Mullinax said he was disappointed “after having spent almost three years of my life working on that report, other reports and on the District Attorney’s Belmont Task Force on Belmont.”

Anthony Patchett who headed the D.A.’s investigation on Belmont said “Don Mullinax did an outstanding job. He found a lot of fraud and corruption. It’s just the fact that when he took those cases to the District Attorney’s office, they chose not to go forward with them. They’ll go ahead and they’ll prosecute the small crimes under $15,000, but for the other crimes that Mr. Mullinax has found, they still have that blind eye towards that”.

According tothen Interim Inspector General Jerry Thornton some of the problems have been resolved but investigations are ongoing. “If you are looking at lower level employees, if you’re looking at people that manage cafeterias and people that do the grounds work, we could do this for the next 15 years and nobody would ever say anything to us. But when you elevate your investigations up to the hierarchy of an organization like this, you’re always going to meet resistance. Everybody’s for accountability until you hold them accountable”, he said.

Investigator Karen Sexton told Full Disclosure® how an adult school contractor and other unnamed individuals were never prosecuted when the Inspector General’s investigation found classes that didn’t exist, ghost students and people working double assignments. She said the only outcome of the investigation was “they no longer work for the District” because the contractor’s contract was not renewed.”

Bob Williams , promoted to Acting Deputy Inspector General following the departure of Don Mullinax, told Full Disclosure® the BB Bond investigation resulted in auditors finding $600 million that was spent on different things (click here to see PAGE 4 of the BB Bond follow-up report) that went to the actual contractors as opposed to the projects. When asked what the outcome of BB Bond investigation was, the supervising investigator told Full Disclosure® “the outcome basically, was nothing.”